"In praise of Go" discussion on ycombinator

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> wrote in message 
news:ic03ui$gjg$1 at digitalmars.com...
> On 11/17/10 12:00 AM, Jay Byrd wrote:
>> On Tue, 16 Nov 2010 23:55:42 -0700, Rainer Deyke wrote:
>>
>>> On 11/16/2010 22:24, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>>> I'm curious what the response to my example will be. So far I got one
>>>> that doesn't even address it.
>>>
>>> I really don't see the problem with requiring that '{' goes on the same
>>> line as 'if'.
>>
>> It *isn't* required. But if you don't put it there, *you get the wrong
>> result*. I really don't understand why the problem with Andrei's example
>> isn't blatantly obvious to everyone, but I would not want to use any
>> product of anyone for whom it isn't.
>
> Exactly, that comes as a big surprise to me, too, in that discussion. I 
> can only hypothesize that some readers just glaze over the example 
> thinking "ah, whatever... a snippet trying to support some naysay", and 
> they reply armed with that presupposition.
>

Sad as it may be, most people, and worse still, most programmers, have no 
qualms about "safety by convention". That's why they don't see this as a big 
problem. Safety-by-convention is one of those things that's only recognized 
as a real problem by people with enough self-discipline and people who have 
actually been burned enough by dong it wrong.